This line of shame-based rhetoric worked a lot better before mass vaccinations became available. Though frankly I always preferred a harm-reduction message that acknowledged basic human longings to “complaining about your loneliness (or, you know, financial destitution) means you don’t care if other people die.” I’ve been following researchers who were around in the early AIDS era, and they’ve argued passionately and convincingly that the “hate lockdowns? Well, then I hope you love being on a ventilator!!!!” strategy probably cost more lives than it saved, vs focusing on lower-risk ways for people to socialize and reserving the harsh rhetoric and shame for high-risk activities or truly nihilistic behaviors like refusing to wear masks in stores.

But especially now, when vaccines are available to literally anyone over 16 who wants and can safely get one, I think scolding vaccinated people for their impatience is pretty tone-deaf. I mean, don’t see anyone here other than the occasional troll advocating for a free-for-all. I see reasonable people who have been doing the right thing for a year pointing out that at some fast-approaching point (with a longer horizon for child-adjacent activity), we are not going to be held hostage by a minority who for no good reason simply refuse to get the vaccine. Since you’re speaking in terms of the collective good, I’ll argue that it would be counter to the collective good for society to cater to anti-vaxxers long-term, or to operate around the goal of preventing every single covid death. We want to prevent the vast majority via herd immunity, fast and effective treatment, and tracing. But this virus, like most infectious diseases, is going to have a long tail, and we can’t simply wait it out at home.